


it's a beautiful day to ruin lives

by elisela



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Fluff, Grey's spoilers though S16 but if you don't know them by now I don't know how to help you, I've spent too much of my life watching Grey's Anatomy to not use that knowledge somehow, Lydia Martin & Stiles Stilinski Friendship, M/M, Misunderstandings, Trope Subversion
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-01
Updated: 2021-02-01
Packaged: 2021-03-18 17:00:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,570
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29121585
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elisela/pseuds/elisela
Summary: It’s not that Stiles thinks Grey’s Anatomy is the best show on television—it just holds a special place in his heart. He spent a lot of time at Scott’s after his mom died, much of it curled on the couch with Melissa’s hand running through his unruly hair.She watched Grey’s religiously, and therefore, so did Stiles.
Relationships: Derek Hale/Stiles Stilinski
Comments: 10
Kudos: 203





	it's a beautiful day to ruin lives

**Author's Note:**

> Lauren assured me there was no such thing as too self-indulgent.

It’s not that Stiles thinks Grey’s Anatomy is the best show on television—it’s objectively not, the drama is a little excessive and he’s pretty sure that any doctor who lived through a shooting, a plane crash, and countless friends dying would immediately quit and shut themselves into a secluded cabin in the woods—it just holds a special place in his heart. He spent a lot of time at Scott’s after his mom died, much of it curled on the couch with Melissa’s hand running through his unruly hair. 

She watched Grey’s religiously, and therefore, so did Stiles. 

He dropped the habit after his teenage years—supernatural creatures did not understand the sanctity of Thursday nights—but he’d happened to drop into Scott’s during his Spring Break trip home from college during his junior year to find her watching it alone, so he’d sat down, ordered them pizza, and caught up. 

And oh shit did he have a lot to catch up on. For one thing, almost everyone he had been familiar with is dead—no more George, who always reminded him a little of Scott—and people who had just been introduced are also dead. Or gone. It’s a little difficult to keep track when Melissa gives him a quick rundown during commercials, and he leaves that night intending to binge-watch everything he’s missed—six seasons—by the next Thursday.

He fails, of course, but only because he takes a break late Monday night after his eyes start feeling like sandpaper whenever he blinks, somehow ends up at Derek’s and just … doesn’t leave until he has to go back to school. He ends up catching up when he’s back in D.C., watching episodes late at night as he sits on the phone with Derek, subtitles on and volume low so he doesn’t have to explain why he’s watching. 

There’s a part of him that doesn’t expect him and Derek to make it through a year of long-distance, not when he has a summer internship to get through, not when D.C. gets hit with more snow than they have in decades the day he’s supposed to fly home for Christmas and he misses the whole trip—but Derek keeps calling, and he occasionally talks about the future, and when Stiles flies home after graduation he’s waiting at the airport to pick him up.

He gets a job where he can work from home, except working from his childhood bedroom seems wrong once you’re out of high school, so he relocates his home office to Derek’s loft. Three months later it’s pretty apparent that Stiles can get no work done with pack members dropping in and out as they please, so home is moved once again to the house Derek buys for them, six blocks away from his Dad’s, edging right along the Preserve. The loft stays for hangouts, and living with Derek is—it’s good. It’s very, very good, and surprisingly easy to settle into a routine after a few false starts. They figure out pretty quickly that spending time apart is actually good for them, so Stiles spends one night a week with his dad, and when Grey’s starts back up he shows up at Melissa’s doorstep with take-out, and she lets him in.

Melissa might love Grey’s, but now that Stiles understands a little more about life and love and loss, he’s way more into it than he was as a teenager. And he can’t text Melissa at 3am when he has a random thought about Meredith and Riggs—he’d tried once and it hadn’t been appreciated—so he turns, like he always does, to the internet.

He found a Discord server pretty easily—he’d already been on a few for gaming—and it was an easy way to get out whatever he was thinking about the latest episode, because Stiles has always had trouble letting go of thoughts until he expressed them. The people on it were, overall, pretty nice, and someone was always around to respond to his thoughts about any number of things. 

And then there was Christopher. 

Okay, well—Stiles may not be being fair. It’s not that Christopher is rude, it’s that his opinions are trash and he seems to live for arguing with every damn thing Stiles posts. If Stiles mentions that Jackson is better off without April, Christopher is there to argue about how trauma affects relationships and the necessity of therapy and looking through a lens of empathy. If Christopher mentions how he preferred Mark and Callie to Mark and Lexie, Stiles is there with a three page—sources cited—text about why Mark and Lexie were undeniably a better match.

In fact, they’ve only agreed on one topic over the last several years—that Derek Shepherd was The One for Meredith and any other relationship she could get into would just be settling. Christopher had talked about Derek’s death like he understood loss intimately, and Stiles had been so affected by his words that he’d given up trying to work for the day the second his Derek had gotten home and spent the rest of the night curled up against him.

The server activity ramps up with the start of each new season, and this year there’s a new channel that Stiles is living for—Question of the Week. Unsurprisingly, he spends most of his time in that channel arguing with his arch-nemesis.

**S**  
Cristina is a goddess and was too good for this show.

Stiles jabs at the send button so enthusiastically that he fumbles his phone, bouncing it off his knee before he manages to catch it again. He flexes his toes in his shoes as he waits for a response—he can see the _ᐧᐧᐧ **Christopher** is typing…_ at the bottom of the screen, and he just knows whatever Christopher says will immediately make him want to argue.

 **Christopher**  
Callie would be a better choice for a comeback. She didn’t deserve to have her story end like that.

His brain might _actually_ stop for a moment. Stiles would rather have the ghost of Lexie Grey haunt the hospital for a season than deal with more Callie Torres drama.

 **S**  
I should have known that you would once again have the wrong opinion.  
Callie might have been the most obnoxious person on this show and that’s saying a lot when Alex is right there.

 **Christopher**  
Figures, another character with trauma that you conveniently ignore.  
Callie reminds me a little of my boyfriend. That might be part of the reason.

 **S**  
NOT EVERYTHING IS ABOUT JACKSON AND APRIL DUMBASS.

He hits send and starts again, then catches Christopher’s last message and stops, horrified at the small pang in his stomach at the words. _Boyfriend_ , his mind repeats, and the twist in his stomach happens again. He closes the app, locks the phone and drops it into his desk drawer, slams it shut and looks at it warily, like it’s the phone’s fault that he has these … feelings. 

Feeling.

Not even a feeling, really, probably just a coincidence—it must be past his lunch time already, it’s nothing. He has Derek, and he loves Derek, he’d fought for Derek, he’d stopped just short of literally walking through hell for Derek—some faceless dude on the internet shouldn’t even matter to him.

Doesn’t.

 _Doesn’t_ matter to him. He just likes arguing! He and Derek used to argue this way, because Stiles was young and stupid and didn’t really know how to flirt—

Oh.

Oh shit.

He decides just to forget about it. He deletes the app from his phone—social media detox is healthy, at least that’s what all the articles on social media say—forces himself to think about something else every time Grey’s Anatomy pops into his head, and actually listens to Scott for once when he rambles on about how amazing Allison is and how thankful he is for her. 

And then he’s a dick about it, because after nearly a decade, it’s still the same stuff and he’s grown tired of hearing it. 

“We get it, Scotty, you love Allison,” he says, tossing the X-Box controller onto the coffee table after the third time Scott beats him in Mario Kart in a row. “I love Derek, but you don’t hear me talking about it all day, every day.”

“We don’t hear you talk about it at all,” Scott says, looking over at him and rolling his eyes. “In fact, I’m pretty sure that’s the first time I’ve heard you say you love him. I’m tempted to ask if something’s wrong.”

“Not all of us can pull off saccharine like you do,” he says, standing up. He feels wrong all the sudden, irritable and itchy, and he needs to be around Derek. “I gotta go. See ya later, bro.”

Guilt settles in his stomach on his way home, picking at all the curves and bleeding towards the center. He knows Scott’s response was just because he was being an asshole, but suddenly the lack of verbal affirmation weighs on him, feels like it’s something he’s doing wrong. He’s always been a talker, except for when it comes to Derek, because it’s just not something they do. He’s told Derek he loved him exactly twice—although he’s not sure if _I love you too much for you to die on me_ should count—and it doesn’t matter that Derek has never said it back, because Stiles knows, and he knows why Derek doesn’t want to say it.

It just doesn’t feel like enough in light of all this guilt.

Derek’s on the couch when he gets home, frowning slightly at his phone, and then really frowning when Stiles drops down in front of him and buries his head in Derek’s lap, and not in the way that means anything fun is about to happen. He doesn’t bother trying to hide it; Derek can smell the discomfort and guilt coming off him in waves, there’s no point. He’s too polite to mention it, anyway.

“I love you,” Stiles says, mouth dragging against Derek’s thigh. “You know that. Don’t you?”

“I know that,” Derek says, and he moves his hand to the top of Stiles’ head and just holds it there. “You okay?”

He shrugs. He feels unsettled, emotions and thoughts muddled up too much to make sense. “Gonna go to bed,” he says, bracing his hands on Derek’s knees and pushing himself backwards. “Kinda got in a—thing, with Scott. I don’t know. I just need to sleep it off.”

Derek’s hand trails along his cheek before he drops it back down. “I’ll be in soon,” he says, and Stiles pretends he isn’t the biggest asshole in the world when Derek leans forward to kiss his forehead gently.

He feels almost embarrassed about the whole thing a few days later. It’s been a week since he checked the server, his low-grade guilt is pretty much gone; Derek’s been a little down for the last few days and he’d thrown himself into going overboard to cheer him up. 

“Just lost touch with a friend,” Derek had said when Stiles tried to badger it out of him, and Stiles had carefully _not_ expressed any sort of disbelief that Derek had friends that he didn’t know. Not that he’s upset about it; Derek, in his opinion, needs all the friends he can get, so long as they’re not the type to go on murderous rampages because he is really getting too old for that.

Derek had looked a little surprised when Stiles pulled him out to the Preserve in the middle of the night for a moonlight picnic, but he’d looked happier afterwards and Stiles—

Well, Stiles will have the bruises and marks from that one for awhile, and having to lay on his stomach while Derek picked all the splinters out of his lower back wasn’t exactly fun, and he’s permanently crossing having sex against a tree off their list, but he wouldn’t trade it for anything. 

And it’s _Thursday_. Thursday always puts Stiles in a good mood, good enough that he decides to download Discord again and check the server before he texts Melissa to figure out what she wants him to bring over for dinner. He’s not surprised to see new messages in every channel and a handful of DM’s, but he is surprised to see that Christopher is one of them, and he’s clicking on his icon before he can think twice.

**Christopher**  
I haven’t seen you on here in a few days, I hope everything is okay.

It’s one message—just one, one that doesn’t even mean anything, but Stiles gets butterflies in his stomach for a tiny, little moment before he feels his heart crash. He shoves his phone in his back pocket and grabs his keys off the front table, gets in his Jeep and starts driving.

Scott’s out, he’d never understand. Allison would tell Scott. Jackson—ha. No. His dad … Stiles doesn’t even want to begin to explain fandom and Discord and talking to people you don’t know online to his dad, but Lydia, he thinks—Lydia might get it. Lydia, at the very least, will tell him what to do with a surety that he needs, and will keep at him until he follows her orders.

Her nonchalant reaction, he has to admit, throws him a little. “I’m not sure I understand the problem,” she says, scrolling back through his phone. “So you flirt with the guy in your weird Stiles way. How’s that an issue?”

“Uh, Derek?” he says, throwing his hands out and nearly knocking the latte she’d gotten him off the table. “Derek is the problem. Not the problem! The problem is that I have Derek—no! God damn it. Derek’s not a problem. The problem is _me_.”

“Uh … huh,” Lydia says, narrowing her eyes a little. “You realize this is hardly flirting, don’t you? I understand that your frame of reference is messed up— _oh_ ,” she says, and Stiles takes a moment to be thankful that she _finally_ gets it. “Oh, Stiles. That’s still not a big deal, okay? You think I don’t enjoy the way Jackson flirts with me even though I’m with Jordan? It feels good when someone gives you attention,” she says, reaching over and resting a hand on his arm.

“It—” he stops and sighs. “It feels like Derek,” he admits. “Christy at the bakery flirts with me too, and I don’t—this feels too much like Derek, and it feels—weird.”

“So tell him,” Lydia says. “I bet you wouldn’t feel as guilty if he knew.”

If ever he could use the rude, socially awkward Derek back, it’s now. He’d said goodbye to Lydia and made his way home, paced anxiously through the house until Derek got home from work, and started talking. Only he’s mostly managed to talk around what the issue is and has spent more of his time explaining why Lydia had assured him it was okay before he realized that Derek looked so confused was because he’s been rambling for five minutes and hasn’t actually told Derek what’s going on. 

“It’s just—there’s this guy,” he says, and Derek’s jaw sets tight before he nods a single time. “No! Not—well, I guess I can’t say—I didn’t mean for it to happen—”

 _Shut up_ , he tells himself. This is worse than the time he accidentally sold Isaac to another pack. 

Derek doesn’t say anything. He doesn’t do anything but look blankly at the floor, looking like he’s barely keeping himself from running away. 

“I realized I’ve been flirting with him,” Stiles tries again, snatching his phone off the couch and unlocking it. “ _Nothing else_ , Derek, I swear, it made me—I felt bad. I’m telling you because I felt bad and I wanted you to know—look,” he says, opening the app to one of the channels where he and Christopher had gotten into an argument that lasted two hours about whether or not Alex was an absolute douchebag for leaving Jo and he shoves it at Derek. “I doubt you’ll understand the conversation but you can see what we talk about, and I swear we don’t talk like, privately—well he did just sent a message but I didn’t respond—”

Derek is staring at the phone with a look of disbelief, and Stiles wants to snap his mouth shut and wait—he’s just not built for that. “I’ll leave the server,” he offers, hesitantly. He knows Derek can be a little possessive and he doesn’t mind; he’s run with wolves for long enough to understand instinct and knows how often Derek suppresses his already. 

Also … he can’t deny that he likes it. God knows he’s a little too possessive over Derek in return, but you have your boyfriend kidnapped often enough and idle thought of using your handcuffs to keep him locked up in a decidedly unkinky manner start turning into plans. 

“Stiles,” Derek says, and in the pause between one breath and the next, Stiles tries to figure out if it’s anger or frustrating he hears in Derek’s voice. “Alex _loved_ Jo. He knew there were different ways to be involved with his kids—”

“Oh like Jo would have moved to bumfuck Kansas,” he snaps, and stops. The only thing he can do is blink at Derek and he does, frantically trying to fit this new information into his brain. “Oh my _God_ , that’s what you do with Jackson every Thursday night!” he nearly yells, jabbing his finger at Derek. “You would, you’re all McAngsty over here. I can’t believe I didn’t know this about you. Derek Hale, secret Grey’s junkie.”

“I should have figured out it was you earlier,” Derek says suddenly, grinning at him in a way that unnerves Stiles. “Only you could have such idiotic opinions.” 

He’s in information overload, and it takes him so long to understand what Derek’s saying that Derek pulls out his phone, taps around, and opens up—

“What the fuck,” Stiles says faintly, staring at the private message from Christopher on two screens. “You—you barely know how to work your email!”

“No,” Derek says, leaning in so close that his breath puffs over Stiles’ lips, “it’s just funny when you get irritated over my ‘technological ineptitude’. And I like it when you bring out the big words.”

“Oh my God,” he says again, weakly. “I don’t even know what’s happening here.”

Derek closes the small gap between them and kisses him softly, one hand coming up to caress Stiles’ cheek, and he leans into it for a moment until Derek pulls away. “Gotta get to Jackson’s,” he says, grinning as he presses one more kiss to Stiles’ mouth. “We usually get In-N-Out before the show starts.”

In-N-Out. 

Derek drives nearly an hour with _Jackson_ to get In-N-Out, a place that, when Stiles begs for it, he calls “subpar” and “artery-blocking”. 

That’s—

“This is a toxic relationship, Derek Hale,” he yells out the open front door, because Derek’s already halfway down the driveway, looking pleased with himself. “I hope your burger is overcooked and your fries are soggy!”

**Christopher**  
The episode’s just started and I can already tell that @S will be in here telling us that no, Owen and Amelia are definitely the better couple.

**S**  
@Christopher once again you’re wrong. They were a disaster, I just don’t believe Amelia really loves Link. 

**Lolo**  
@S @Christopher can you two get your own channel already? Or a room?

“How did you even come up with Christopher?” he asks Derek later, happily shoving the double-double Derek had produced from behind his back when he walked through the door into his mouth.

“My mom told us never to use our real names on the internet,” Derek says, sounding sheepish as he drops onto the couch, and Stiles laughs. “I was going to go with my middle name but I couldn’t shake the feeling that she wouldn’t like that either, and I remembered Shepherd’s middle name was Christopher, so I used that.”

“You _nerd_ ,” Stiles says, punching him on the shoulder and then shaking his hand out. “Fuck, I gotta remember to stop doing that. I still can’t wrap my head around this, Derek. I would have never thought you liked Grey’s.”

Derek leans into him and Stiles switches the burger to his other hand so he can slide his arm over Derek’s shoulder and pull him in. “I started watching it because Laura liked it,” he says. “I heard you watching it when you’d call and I picked it back up, and Jackson dropped by one day while it was on and asked if I wanted to come watch the new episode with him.”

“And the Discord?” It comes out muffled with his mouth full of food, and he can see the look Derek gives him without needing to see Derek at all.

“Found it when I was trying to figure out what I missed without having to actually watch all the episodes,” he says. “Turns out it was nice to talk to people about stupid shit for once. Other than you. But then—”

“Don’t front, you love arguing with me,” Stiles says, yanking him closer and shoving the last of the burger in his mouth.

“Yeah,” Derek says, “I do. But you’re still so wrong about April.”

**Author's Note:**

> PS for anyone wondering: Stiles wakes up a few days later to a post-it on his bedside table that says, "I picked you. I chose you."
> 
> YOU'RE WELCOME.
> 
> [rebloggable tumblr link](https://elisela.tumblr.com/post/641880309291433984/its-a-beautiful-day-to-ruin-lives-elisela) in case you also like self-indulgent garbage


End file.
